Lady Gaga’s Alejandro Video; AKA Dirty Army Nun.

Alejandro, as a song, wasn’t and isn’t my favorite of her repertoire. In fact, I still love Bad Romance and its… “multifaceted” video the most. Alejandro doesn’t feel like it has a true grasp on what kind of song it wants to be, and this is ever evident in the wishy washy new video.

Let me put out my exact thought: it’s not terrible (a la Telephone video), but it’s just starting to seem like Gaga just wants to push the envelope more and more, both with censors and with people’s liberal agendas. You can watch the video for yourself here and let me know what you think.

…Did you see it? Because I really hope you’re not a devout Christian. In the latest near-9-minute spectacle, Gaga can be seen being raped by several men with bowl haircuts in heels, dancing with 2 M16 machine guns strapped to her brazier, and deep-throating a rosary. Of course, this is all aside from her practically having rodeo sex with a chained up man, and there are a few Nazi references thrown around (most notably, the costumes of some soldiers).

Now I get some of the message about conformity, religion and government (and a possible response to the whole Westboro Baptist Church incident), but where do any of the lyrics play into this? Plenty of artists constantly put out music videos that are either completely unrelated to the accompanying song or are so veiled in “depth” that no one sees it. Alejandro is just another example of this; I thought the song was about Gaga having a lover (or possibly more) who she just wanted to hook up with and nothing more. Then we get homosexual Nazis in fishnet stockings.

But I digress; I’m all for some envelope-pushing censor slapping nonsense. In the context of the song and the video itself, though… it just feels weird. Of course, Gaga is no stranger to the odd, queer or downright mind-boggling, but where some of her videos feel more polished and refined, this one feels like a haphazardly slaphappy cornucopia of spontaneity. It progresses as though each scene was meant to be a “look how crazy this is” scene, topping each of the scenes before it. This might sound like it would be a pretty good pace, but it’s not. And if you’re a fan of Madonna’s at all, you might be offended at how Madonna-esque the video is, with the sexuality, hair, strange alteration to women’s underwear and black and white filters all referencing some of her 80’s work.

So really, Gaga’s most lasting legacy thus far is her disregard for normalcy and her obsession with the socially arcane (or, let’s say, batshit bonkers), which is fine and dandy but I’m afraid by her next single or album, she might just be pushing it too far. Again, like I said, I’m all for crazy and ridiculous, and the more over-the-top something is, the more I love it… however, it literally just feels like she might be trying too hard to be different. We get it Stefanie, you’re a deviant and you play by your own rules. That’s fine… but would it kill you to make a video that made sense for once? AND ONE THAT ISN’T A SHORT FILM DRESSED IN DRAG? I wouldn’t be too surprised if she put on that bird’s nest concoction she wore to the VMA’s and flipped pancakes with an anteater for 14 minutes and called it “Polka Dot Dragon.”